Friday, October 31, 2008

This is why we shouldn't let Philadelphia teams win championships. There are plenty of ridiculous videos floating around that capture the stupidity of Philadelphians celebrating after the Philies win last week, but this one takes the cake. Both the sound of the vodka bottle hitting that dudes head to the immediate reaction of "I got that on video!" should solidify your distaste of Philly sports fans.

i know i had posted this on y.i.k.y.b but i feel it is more significant now than before. watch mccain's face as the man progresses his question; mccain knows it's over. he knows republicans abandoned their upper-crust, top 1% electorate to try to pander to "joe the plumber" and it back-fired.

mccain/palin continually state to the poor, poor idiots who wander to their rallies that obama will raise taxes and "spread the wealth around." what they don't explain is that the only people obama is raising taxes on is anyone making over $300,000 a year; the old republican base.

just take a room full of jerk-offs, give em two candidates and i guarentee you the majority will vote for the jerk-off who convinces them their taxes won't be raised...this reminds me of something else...

Thursday, October 30, 2008

IT IS impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be. Back in 2000 America stood tall as the undisputed superpower, at peace with a generally admiring world. The main argument was over what to do with the federal government’s huge budget surplus. Nobody foresaw the seismic events of the next eight years. When Americans go to the polls next week the mood will be very different. The United States is unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its self-belief and values are under attack.

For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.Thinking about 2009 and 2017

The immediate focus, which has dominated the campaign, looks daunting enough: repairing America’s economy and its international reputation. The financial crisis is far from finished. The United States is at the start of a painful recession. Some form of further fiscal stimulus is needed, though estimates of the budget deficit next year already spiral above $1 trillion. Some 50m Americans have negligible health-care cover. Abroad, even though troops are dying in two countries, the cack-handed way in which George Bush has prosecuted his war on terror has left America less feared by its enemies and less admired by its friends than it once was.

Yet there are also longer-term challenges, worth stressing if only because they have been so ignored on the campaign. Jump forward to 2017, when the next president will hope to relinquish office. A combination of demography and the rising costs of America’s huge entitlement programmes—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—will be starting to bankrupt the country. Abroad a greater task is already evident: welding the new emerging powers to the West. That is not just a matter of handling the rise of India and China, drawing them into global efforts, such as curbs on climate change; it means reselling economic and political freedom to a world that too quickly associates American capitalism with Lehman Brothers and American justice with Guantánamo Bay. This will take patience, fortitude, salesmanship and strategy.

At the beginning of this election year, there were strong arguments against putting another Republican in the White House. A spell in opposition seemed apt punishment for the incompetence, cronyism and extremism of the Bush presidency. Conservative America also needs to recover its vim. Somehow Ronald Reagan’s party of western individualism and limited government has ended up not just increasing the size of the state but turning it into a tool of southern-fried moralism.

The selection of Mr McCain as the Republicans’ candidate was a powerful reason to reconsider. Mr McCain has his faults: he is an instinctive politician, quick to judge and with a sharp temper. And his age has long been a concern (how many global companies in distress would bring in a new 72-year-old boss?). Yet he has bravely taken unpopular positions—for free trade, immigration reform, the surge in Iraq, tackling climate change and campaign-finance reform. A western Republican in the Reagan mould, he has a long record of working with both Democrats and America’s allies.If only the real John McCain had been running

That, however, was Senator McCain; the Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good features magically inverted, his bad ones exaggerated. The fiscal conservative who once tackled Mr Bush over his unaffordable tax cuts now proposes not just to keep the cuts, but to deepen them. The man who denounced the religious right as “agents of intolerance” now embraces theocratic culture warriors. The campaigner against ethanol subsidies (who had a better record on global warming than most Democrats) came out in favour of a petrol-tax holiday. It has not all disappeared: his support for free trade has never wavered. Yet rather than heading towards the centre after he won the nomination, Mr McCain moved to the right.

Meanwhile his temperament, always perhaps his weak spot, has been found wanting. Sometimes the seat-of-the-pants method still works: his gut reaction over Georgia—to warn Russia off immediately—was the right one. Yet on the great issue of the campaign, the financial crisis, he has seemed all at sea, emitting panic and indecision. Mr McCain has never been particularly interested in economics, but, unlike Mr Obama, he has made little effort to catch up or to bring in good advisers (Doug Holtz-Eakin being the impressive exception).

The choice of Sarah Palin epitomised the sloppiness. It is not just that she is an unconvincing stand-in, nor even that she seems to have been chosen partly for her views on divisive social issues, notably abortion. Mr McCain made his most important appointment having met her just twice.

Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a word of what he has been saying. Once he reaches the White House, runs this argument, he will put Mrs Palin back in her box, throw away his unrealistic tax plan and begin negotiations with the Democratic Congress. That is plausible; but it is a long way from the convincing case that Mr McCain could have made. Had he become president in 2000 instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he knows how to deal with them.

Is Mr Obama any better? Most of the hoopla about him has been about what he is, rather than what he would do. His identity is not as irrelevant as it sounds. Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham. America’s allies would rally to him: the global electoral college on our website shows a landslide in his favour. At home he would salve, if not close, the ugly racial wound left by America’s history and lessen the tendency of American blacks to blame all their problems on racism.

So Mr Obama’s star quality will be useful to him as president. But that alone is not enough to earn him the job. Charisma will not fix Medicare nor deal with Iran. Can he govern well? Two doubts present themselves: his lack of executive experience; and the suspicion that he is too far to the left.

There is no getting around the fact that Mr Obama’s résumé is thin for the world’s biggest job. But the exceptionally assured way in which he has run his campaign is a considerable comfort. It is not just that he has more than held his own against Mr McCain in the debates. A man who started with no money and few supporters has out-thought, out-organised and outfought the two mightiest machines in American politics—the Clintons and the conservative right.

Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign. On the financial crisis his performance has been as assured as Mr McCain’s has been febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is a man who listens, learns and manages well.

It is hard too nowadays to depict him as soft when it comes to dealing with America’s enemies. Part of Mr Obama’s original appeal to the Democratic left was his keenness to get American troops out of Iraq; but since the primaries he has moved to the centre, pragmatically saying the troops will leave only when the conditions are right. His determination to focus American power on Afghanistan, Pakistan and proliferation was prescient. He is keener to talk to Iran than Mr McCain is— but that makes sense, providing certain conditions are met.

Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his party’s baronies, especially the unions. His advisers insist that Mr Obama is too clever to usher in a new age of over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a whole.He has earned it

So Mr Obama in that respect is a gamble. But the same goes for Mr McCain on at least as many counts, not least the possibility of President Palin. And this cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.

Absolutely Huge. In my opinion, the most fair, balanced, well-respected publication on economics and politics in the world gives a non-partisan, thought out endorsement for Barack. While not glossing over the worries or problems that are relevant to an Obama presidency, nor ignoring the strengths of Senator McCain, The Economist makes the clear case why Obama is the better choice. So please, the next time someone refers to Obama as a socialist, please refer them to this article from the bastion of free market capitalism.

This is from Saxby Chambliss, who is desperately trying to maintain his senate seat in Georgia. Notice the insinuation that Martin was responsible for his child's death. Southern GOP's sure do get dirty when they are threatened in an election race.

Lately I've heard a lot of mumblings from people that they are afraid McCain might pull off an upset. They usually qualify this by saying, I know it looks like Obama is going to win, but I thought Kerry would win in '04 too, and then I was shocked on election day. For whatever reason, a lot of people seem to think that Bush pulled the '04 election out of his ass, by some last minute move by Rove, or by some shenanigans in Ohio. What people seem to forget is that Bush was leading the polls going in to election day 4 years ago. This just isn't the case at all right now. I can't emphasize this point any better than by providing these links from Electoral-Vote.com

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

WASHINGTON — "Senator Barack Obama will use his prime-time half-hour infomercial on Wednesday night to make what is effectively a closing argument to a national audience of millions. At times he will speak directly into the camera about his 20-month campaign, at others he will highlight everyday voters, their everyday troubles, and his plans to address them."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------I'm not sure how I feel about this. Obama has stayed strong this whole campaign, and even though risk taking can help, I feel like this has the possibility to backfire. I've built enough trust in him to run a decent infomercial though...maybe he'll show everyone how to use the cricket.

i know he just tried to kill himself but come on! sleeping pills?! a classic cry for help. if that shithead had garnett and pierce instead of allen houston and eddy currie he'd be singing a different tune...

skip to 1:40 to hear the jiggaman's involvement. at first i thought it was just a post-production remix but it seems like jay-z and m.i.a. got together on this one. even if diplo were involved, i doubt m.i.a would want to give him props...interesting track for jay-z to get jiggy on..

"I'm in love with MassachusettsAnd the neon when it's cold outsideAnd the highway when it's late at nightGot the radio onI'm like the roadrunner

AlrightI'm in love with modern moonlight128 when it's dark outsideI'm in love with MassachusettsI'm in love with the radio onIt helps me from being alone late at nightIt helps me from being lonely late at nightI don't feel so bad now in the carDon't feel so alone, got the radio onLike the roadrunnerThat's right"

Regardless of what happens next Tuesday, I have a feeling that Sarah Palin will be sneaking into the Oval Office to measure the curtains...

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," a McCain adviser told CNN. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party."...

"Sarah Oh-Twelve!" bellowed a man in field coat and jeans, one of several thousand at the Leesburg rally, when Palin spoke about her tax policies yesterday.

The oh-twelve message, if mathematically flawed, seemed to capture the crowd's sentiment. There were "I [Heart] Palin" bumper stickers on cars, "Team Sarah" T-shirts in pink, "Sarah!" pins and countless signs: "You Go Girl." "You're in Palin Country." "Maverick Barracuda." One of the souvenir vendors said his most popular offering was a pin showing Palin next to a pit bull and the usual "McCain-Palin" logo reversed, with her name first and in larger letters.

Do you honestly think that now that Sarah Palin has been introduced to the national stage there's even a small chance that she's gonna step down? Even after the curtain drops and the orchestra goes home?

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

"A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of [of the New Yorker] that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Publicly owned resources for the benefit of the common good?!? What kind of a Commie-pinko-share-the-wealth-Karl-Marx-mooslim-terrorist is this woman?

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, andwe're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon,Washington,Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. Webelieve this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especiallyto the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get ElliotSpitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. Youget Alabama.We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red statespay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than theChristian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get abunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice andanti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq atonce. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They havekids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for nopurpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of theirchildren's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, andhope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend ourresources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percentof the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineappleand lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent ofAmerica's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners)90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, mostof the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias andcondors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale,Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health carecosts), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of thetornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all SouthernBaptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh,Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah wasactually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacredunless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent saythat evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involvedin 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy b*****ds believe you are peoplewith higher morals then we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirtweed they grow in Mexico.

Don't know how I made it this far into the election cycle without knowing that a McCain biddy had a blog. She actually has pretty decent taste in music, those New York City socialists must have corrupted her while she was at Columbia. Should have sent her to ASU John.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate’s history and a figure of enormous influence in his state, was found guilty on Monday of violating ethics laws for failing to report gifts and services that he was given by friends. A federal jury of eight women and four men from the District of Columbia found that the 84-year-old Mr. Stevens, who has represented Alaska in the Senate for more than 40 years, knowingly failed to list on Senate disclosure forms the receipt of several gifts and tens of thousands of dollars worth of remodeling work on his home in Girdwood, Alaska. The verdict came just eight days before the senator is to face re-election and after more than three weeks of testimony, the highlight of which was Mr. Stevens making the calculated risk of taking the witness stand in his own defense. As the verdict was announced, the senator remained composed and stared at the ceiling while his lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, put his arm around him. Just before the trial, the senator sounded defiant. “Put this down,” he told reporters. “I am not stepping down. I’m going to run through, and I’m going to win this election.” He did not signal whether the verdict had softened his stance, but he was heard to tell his wife, Catherine, afterward, “It’s not over yet.” The senator remains free on bail. Mr. Stevens has long been tied to the rough-and-tumble history of his home state and wields outsized influence over federal spending. Government prosecutors used evidence and testimony to paint a picture in which several of Mr. Stevens’s wealthy Alaskan friends, keenly aware of his status as the dominant political figure in the state, were eager to shower him with gifts. The indictment charged that he received some $250,000 worth from a longtime friend, Bill Allen, the owner of a huge oil-services construction company, as well as a sled dog, an expensive massage chair and other items from other friends.

Manuel Uribe, who hasn't left his bed in six years, married his longtime girlfriend Claudia Solis Sunday in northern Mexico.

Wearing a white silk shirt with a sheet wrapped around his legs, Uribe smiled as Solis, 38, walked down a flight of stairs wearing a strapless ivory dress, a tiara and hot-pink lipstick.

He later broke into tears as a notary declared the couple husband and wife in a civil ceremony attended by more than 400 guests. For the traditional first dance as newlyweds, Uribe and Solis held hands and swayed to a romantic ballad.

A popular local norteno band played accordion-heavy tunes at the reception, which featured a banquet of meat and buttered vegetables.

"He didn't break his diet," she told The Associated Press. "His doctors are here and they are watching him very closely."

The wedding, which was closed to most media, will be featured in an upcoming Discovery Channel documentary on Uribe, the 43-year-old former mechanic said.

"I have a wife and will form a new family and live a happy life," Uribe told hordes of reporters earlier as they followed him through the streets of Monterrey.

A flatbed truck was brought in to tow his custom-made bed decorated with a canopy, flowers and gold-trimmed bows to the wedding at a local event hall. Two police patrol cars escorted him ahead of a long line of traffic.

Uribe tipped the scales in 2006 at 1,230 pounds (560 kilograms), earning him the Guinness World Record as the world's heaviest man.

He has since shed about 550 pounds (250 kilograms) with the help of Solis, whom he met four years ago.

Uribe said he's gunning for a new title: world's greatest weight loser.

DAMASCUS, Syria – U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as "serious aggression."

A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area struck because Syria was out of the military's reach.

"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

The attack came just days after the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq said American troops were redoubling efforts to secure the Syrian border, which he called an "uncontrolled" gateway for fighters entering Iraq.

A Syrian government statement said the helicopters attacked the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal, five miles inside the Syrian border. Four helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction shortly before sundown and fired on workers inside, the statement said.

The government said civilians were among the dead, including four children.

Not only will President Bush be looking for work after January, but so will most of his cabinet.

Adam Schefter reported on NFL Network's NFL GameDay Morning that the San Francisco 49ers want to talk to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about a high-level position within the organization.

Per Schefter, the 49ers' ownership believes that Rice would make a great team president and that she would be likely to help them get financing for the new stadium they want. Rice was already planning to return to the Bay Area when her work in Washington is finished. She previously served as provost at Stanford.

Rice has also been mentioned as a potential candidate to become either the commissioner of the NFL or the head of the players' union.

does anyone care? i know murs was tight with the living legends and put out some nice collaborations with slug of atmosphere but still...i tend to feel like he's not living up to the hype...his newest release is not on definitive jux (label owned by el-p of company flow fame, featuring the likes of aesop rock), call me a douche bag if you must..

A co-worker of mine approached me yesterday and with his voice trembling said, "did you hear what those fuckers did to the Mccain volunteer? They robbed her and carved a "B" on to her face for Barack." "Where'd you read that," I replied. "The Drudge Report." Figures.

The supposed victim was a 20 year old, white, female, college student from Texas who claimed she had been targeted because of a Mccain bumper sticker on her car. She said that the attacker was a tall black man. I immediately found the story to be a bit suspicious. For one thing, I've often had the inclination to perform a similar act, but have always imagined carving an "O" into the cheek of the Mccain supporter. For another, the "B" on the victims face was backwards. What, did the attacker use a mirror?? No, it turns out the story was made up, and the so-called victim carved the "B" into her own face. Fucking Mccain voters are so stupid. She couldn't even figure out the old mirrors makes things backwards gag.

why are new york laws being re-written so this billionare asshole can squat n.y.c mayor for four more years? the guy made his living off of being a middle man.

what is interesting is that his comapny, bloomberg (ego-dick), specializes in selling these high-priced stock machines that mad companies (such as lehman bros, bear sterns) dealt with on a regular basis. well, none of these companies will need bloomberg's services much longer therefore, bloomberg could soon be hurting:

"When someone talks about their Bloomberg, it is not so much a piece of computer hardware as it is a subscription (that costs - at the bare minimum - between $1,500 and $1,800 per month) to a top-of-the-line financial, regulatory, and market database. Investors can literally access, crunch, analyze, and store information on their favorite companies while, from the very same screen, teleconferencing with a colleague and monitoring the relationship between the United States dollar and the Japanese Yen. For professional mutual funds, hedge funds, private partnerships, insurance companies, banks, and other financial institutions, a Bloomberg terminal is considered an absolute requisite. "

none of what mccain is saying happened. none. the reason the "social security reform" didn't go through was because the "democrats insisted in raising taxes?

my god.

when all else fails, just keep repeating the phrase that democrats raise taxes. over and over again like hot chip blasting from a broken record player.

---

krugman:

"Social Security: we have always been at war with Eastasia

Maybe the fact that John McCain is peddling a completely false version of the great 2005 debate over Social Security doesn’t mean much if you weren’t involved in that debate. But I was, and it’s just bizarre.

One point Josh Marshall doesn’t emphasize is the relentless dishonesty with which the Bush administration made its case. It claimed, falsely, that the system faced an imminent crisis; that privatization offered something for nothing; that Social Security is bad for African-Americans; that each year privatization is delayed costs $600 billion; and on and on.

But even in the middle of all that, it never occurred to me that a future presidential candidate would invent out of thin air a completely false story about how the privatization push failed."

------------------

i know politics is bullshit but the hypocrisy of mccain is scary. terrifying really.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency. The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush." SITE Intelligence Group, based in Bethesda, Md., monitors the Web site and translated the message. "If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests," the message said, "this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

Mark Salter, a senior McCain adviser, said he had heard about the Web site chatter but had no immediate comment. The message is credited to a frequent and apparently respected contributor named Muhammad Haafid. However, Haafid is not believed to have a direct affiliation with al-Qaida plans or knowledge of its operations, according to SITE. SITE senior analyst Adam Raisman said this message caught SITE's attention because there has been little other chatter on the forums about the U.S. election. SITE was struck by the message's detailed analysis — and apparent jubilation — about American financial woes. "What we try to do is get the pulse of the jihadist community," Raisman said. "And it's about the financial crisis." Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden issued a videotape just four days before the 2004 U.S. presidential election directly addressing the American people.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Taunts about his team's lousy season prompted Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain to storm out of a Nebraska strip joint just before he was busted for alleged drunken driving, associates said yesterday. The pitcher was spotted tossing back at least two Grey Goose vodka drinks at a friend's watering hole before hitting a topless club, where patrons said he had been enjoying the sights and tipping big - before stomping out early Saturday morning after a customer teased him about the Bombers' poor performance. "Too bad you didn't play for the Red Sox," the customer said, according to another patron at the club. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be sitting here in a strip club in Nebraska." The 6-foot-3, 235-pound Chamberlain rose in anger, but several friends intervened before the tiff escalated beyond pushing and shoving. A furious Chamberlain left, and moments later, cops nabbed him for allegedly speeding in his 2006 BMW 750i. They hauled him off to a detox center after they smelled alcohol on his breath and saw an open container of alcohol on the passenger seat. Authorities said Chamberlain, who submitted to a Breathalyzer test at the scene, had a blood-alcohol content of .134 at the time of his arrest, nearly double Nebraska's legal limit of .08.

Chamberlain continued to lie low yesterday after issuing an apology a day earlier. What began as a fun Friday night for Chamberlain sank quicker than the injured Yankee's season after he knocked back two vodka and sodas at Dillinger's, said the bar's co-owner, Mike Figueroa. "He left at 10:30," Figueroa said. "He left early. I talked to him, and he said he would try to make it back." Joba never did. Instead, he went to ogle women at the Night Before Lounge, a topless joint in downtown Lincoln. He spent $45 on drinks and tipped $100, sources said. "He tipped pretty well, and the girls were excited he was here," one customer said. Yankee brass said they stand behind their pitcher. "We're behind him 100 percent," said Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees' executive vice president. "He knows he made a mistake. We've always said we're an extended family."

Monday, October 20, 2008

Here Porter Barry, one of O'Reilly's producers, ambushes Bill Moyers at the National Conference for Media Reform in an attempt to create a negative story. Definitely an interesting conversation. But out of all the political television shows, I strongly hold Bill Moyers to be one of the most comprehensive, hard-working, and fair journalists. His weekly show on PBS is extremely under watched as well, despite the variety of subject matters explored and the intelligent way it is presented. So it's fucking hysterical and scary to watch what O'Reilly makes out of this Bill Moyers/Porter Barry encounter. A "body language" expert...are you fucking kidding me? And just to get the record straight, the "National Conference for Media Reform" is sponsored by "Free Press," the largest non-partisan media advocacy organization in the country. Free Press stands for creating a competitive media industry geared towards public interest, and strongly criticizes media consolidation while defending network neutrality. Does that sound like a "crazy, left winged, nutty conference" to you?Original/Uncut

Forty years ago, Richard Nixon made a remarkable marketing discovery. By exploiting America’s divisions — divisions over Vietnam, divisions over cultural change and, above all, racial divisions — he was able to reinvent the Republican brand. The party of plutocrats was repackaged as the party of the “silent majority,” the regular guys — white guys, it went without saying — who didn’t like the social changes taking place. It was a winning formula. And the great thing was that the new packaging didn’t require any change in the product’s actual contents — in fact, the G.O.P. was able to keep winning elections even as its actual policies became more pro-plutocrat, and less favorable to working Americans, than ever. John McCain’s strategy, in this final stretch, is based on the belief that the old formula still has life in it. Thus we have Sarah Palin expressing her joy at visiting the “pro-America” parts of the country — yep, we’re all traitors here in central New Jersey. Meanwhile we’ve got Mr. McCain making Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber — who had confronted Barack Obama on the campaign trail, alleging that the Democratic candidate would raise his taxes — the centerpiece of his attack on Mr. Obama’s economic proposals. And when it turned out that the right’s new icon had a few issues, like not being licensed and comparing Mr. Obama to Sammy Davis Jr., conservatives played victim: see how much those snooty elitists hate the common man?

But what’s really happening to the plumbers of Ohio, and to working Americans in general? First of all, they aren’t making a lot of money. You may recall that in one of the early Democratic debates Charles Gibson of ABC suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income. Tell that to Ohio plumbers: according to the May 2007 occupational earnings report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of “plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters” in Ohio was $47,930. Second, their real incomes have stagnated or fallen, even in supposedly good years. The Bush administration assured us that the economy was booming in 2007 — but the average Ohio plumber’s income in that 2007 report was only 15.5 percent higher than in the 2000 report, not enough to keep up with the 17.7 percent rise in consumer prices in the Midwest. As Ohio plumbers went, so went the nation: median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2007 than it had been in 2000. Third, Ohio plumbers have been having growing trouble getting health insurance, especially if, like many craftsmen, they work for small firms. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2007 only 45 percent of companies with fewer than 10 employees offered health benefits, down from 57 percent in 2000.

And bear in mind that all these data pertain to 2007 — which was as good as it got in recent years. Now that the “Bush boom,” such as it was, is over, we can see that it achieved a dismal distinction: for the first time on record, an economic expansion failed to raise most Americans’ incomes above their previous peak. Since then, of course, things have gone rapidly downhill, as millions of working Americans have lost their jobs and their homes. And all indicators suggest that things will get much worse in the months and years ahead. So what does all this say about the candidates? Who’s really standing up for Ohio’s plumbers? Mr. McCain claims that Mr. Obama’s policies would lead to economic disaster. But President Bush’s policies have already led to disaster — and whatever he may say, Mr. McCain proposes continuing Mr. Bush’s policies in all essential respects, and he shares Mr. Bush’s anti-government, anti-regulation philosophy.

What about the claim, based on Joe the Plumber’s complaint, that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Mr. Obama? Well, Mr. Obama proposes raising rates on only the top two income tax brackets — and the second-highest bracket for a head of household starts at an income, after deductions, of $182,400 a year. Maybe there are plumbers out there who earn that much, or who would end up suffering from Mr. Obama’s proposed modest increases in taxes on dividends and capital gains — America is a big country, and there’s probably a high-income plumber with a huge stock market portfolio out there somewhere. But the typical plumber would pay lower, not higher, taxes under an Obama administration, and would have a much better chance of getting health insurance. I don’t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit. But that’s the point. Whatever today’s G.O.P. is, it isn’t the party of working Americans.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

and people wonder why the average idiot-conservative is so angry. limbaugh somehow ties in about 40 different problematic talking points with his racist agenda and finally connects the dots: obama and his dangerous liberal cohorts are responsible for every problem in america.

the thought that republicans are shouting "fraud" with this acorn bit is straight up disgusting. 2000 election anyone? yet, what's the scariest thought of all this? people are still taking intellectual cues from rush limbaugh. can't this guy o.d. on oxy contin already?